If one reads this article with my theory here in mind, one will find this LDS author indirectly confirming my theory.
From The Gathering of Israel by Joseph Fielding McConkie (emphasis added):
An understanding of the doctrine of the gathering of Israel is essential to a sound understanding of the gospel. Of the gathering, the Prophet Joseph Smith said, “It is a principle I esteem to be of the greatest importance to those who are looking for salvation in this generation.”[1]
The doctrine of the gathering stands at the very heart of the message of the restored gospel. We do not really understand who we are as a people, the covenants God has made with us, or the destiny that is ours until we gain a meaningful understanding of this doctrine.
On Sunday, April 3, 1836, a week after Joseph Smith dedicated the Kirtland Temple, the Prophet recorded that after he administered the Lord’s Supper, “I retired to the pulpit, the veils being dropped, and bowed myself, with Oliver Cowdery, in solemn and silent prayer. After rising from prayer, the following vision was opened to both of us” (D&C 110, section heading). This vision is recounted in section 110 of the Doctrine and Covenants. ...
“Moses,” the Prophet said, “appeared before us, and committed unto us the keys of the gathering of Israel from the four parts of the earth, and the leading of the ten tribes from the land of the north” (D&C 110:11). Then Elias appeared. He committed the keys of the dispensation of Abraham, which means that he restored that power and authority that is unique to Abraham’s dispensation. He said “that in us and our seed all generations after us should be blessed” (v. 12). ...
... As we proceed with this discussion, let us do so in the form of a conversation. You ask the questions, as it were, and I, with the aid of the scriptures and the words of prophets, will attempt to answer them. We begin:
Question: Who is included in the term Israel?
Answer: The term Israel refers to the literal descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The greatest promise the Lord can give to a righteous man, beyond the promise of his own salvation, is that of a righteous posterity. This promise, along with a host of attendant promises, God made to Abraham. He made the promise anew to Abraham’s son Isaac, and made it yet again to Isaac’s son Jacob.
Question: Why was Abraham chosen to receive this covenant?
Answer: The covenant had come down from the beginning through the fathers to Abraham (see Abraham 1:3). Abraham, in what constituted a new dispensation, sought for the blessings of this covenant, and the Lord chose to renew it again through him (see Abraham 2:9–11).
.... Answer: After four hundred years of bondage in Egypt, the Lord sent Moses to the children of Israel. Having turned them to Christ, Moses was to liberate them from their enslavement and bring them as a nation to Mount Sinai. Here the Lord intended to sanctify them and renew with them the covenant he had made with their father Abraham. Having been so empowered, they were to return to the land the Lord had promised the seed of Abraham and there build a temple to their God.
Note that Joseph Smith is described as one who is "great like unto Moses, ... to deliver [God's] people, [... house of Israel]" (2 Nephi 3:9). My theory is that Smith delivered early Mormons from the abominable Creeds that denied God's bodily parts and passions, which is why the temple ritual pre-1990 had a sectarian Minister preaching the Nicene Creed and a god without parts and passions. The article continues:
... Question: Does scripture foretell that Moses would come to restore Israel to the covenants made with their fathers?
Answer: Yes. The Lord promised Joseph of Egypt “that he would preserve his seed forever, saying, I will raise up Moses, and a rod shall be in his hand, and he shall gather together my people, and he shall lead them as a flock, and he shall smite the waters of the Red Sea with his rod” (Joseph Smith Translation, Genesis 50:34).
Note that Joseph Smith is the seed of Joseph of Egypt according to Joseph Smith Translation, Genesis 50. Thus it is clear that Smith is seeing a pattern of the seed (sperm) of men in the Old Testament producing a righteous posterity. This is what Mormon polygamy in the 1800s is all about, producing a People through the seed of men from the North. The article continues:
... Question: Am I to understand that at the time of Moses, the reason the children of Israel were “gathered,” meaning freed from their Egyptian bondage and taken to Sinai, was to covenant with God to be his people?
Answer: Yes, exactly. God sought to renew with Israel the covenant he had made with their fathers. In Exodus 19, Moses led Israel to the base of Mount Sinai, where they camped. Then Moses ascended the mountain to speak with God. “Ye have seen,” God said to Moses, “what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine. And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation” (Exodus 19:4–6).
Moses reported this to his people, and they said, “All that the Lord hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord” (Exodus 19:8). Moses was then directed to sanctify his people preparatory to God’s appearing to them. The word sanctify means to be “separated” or “set apart.” It involved an ordinance of washing wherein the children of Israel were to be made clean that they might stand in the presence of God. If we add to the story what we learn from the revelations of the Restoration, it means that they were to be consecrated to God and that he was going to endow them with power from on high before they commenced their journey to their land of promise.
Again we see the type: In Joseph Smith’s day, those liberated from the bondage of false religions were to gather with the Saints at Nauvoo. Here they built their Sinai, or temple, and here they were endowed prior to their journey to the promised land in which they would build a temple to their God. In like manner, today all the children of Israel are invited to come to the house of the Lord where they will be sanctified and endowed with power from on high prior to making their journey through life.
Moses sought to gather Israel and restore to them that which they had lost. They had broken their covenants and lost their land of inheritance and the knowledge of how they were to worship their God. Elder Bruce R. McConkie stated the matter succinctly: Israel was scattered “because they forsook the Abrahamic covenant.”[2]
Question: So Israel is scattered when she breaks her covenants and gathered when she returns to them?
And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.
And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law [D&C 132?], and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 2:2–3)
Here, Isaiah is saying that after the gospel has come to you, you must go to the temple. It is there that you will be taught in the ways of the God of Jacob. It is there that the promises of the covenant are given.
Question: So you are saying that to be gathered means to be baptized and then to go to the temple to receive the same promises that were made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
[Note that the promise is that of a righteous posterity and a flourishing people]
Answer: Exactly. Now, consider Joseph Smith’s testimony alongside that of Isaiah: “What was the object of gathering the Jews, or the people of God in any age of the world? . . . The main object was to build unto the Lord a house whereby He could reveal unto his people the ordinances of his house and the glories of his kingdom, and teach the people the way of salvation; for there are certain ordinances and principles that, when they are taught and practiced, must be done in a place or house built for that purpose.”[3]
In the context of a revelation dealing with the building of the temple in Nauvoo, the Lord said,
How shall your washings be acceptable unto me, except ye perform them in a house which you have built to my name?
For, for this cause I commanded Moses that he should build a tabernacle, that they should bear it with them in the wilderness, and to build a house in the land of promise, that those ordinances might be revealed which had been hid from before the world was.
Therefore, verily I say unto you, that your anointings, and your washings, and your baptisms for the dead, and your solemn assemblies, and your memorials for your sacrifices by the sons of Levi, and for your oracles in your most holy places wherein you receive conversations, and your statutes and judgments, for the beginning of the revelations and foundation of Zion, and for the glory, honor, and endowment of all her municipals, are ordained by the ordinance of my holy house, which my people are always commanded to build unto my holy name. (D&C 124:37–39)
Doctrine and Covenants 84 gives us the best understanding of what was involved at the time of Moses. It tells us that without the ordinances and authority of the priesthood, no man could see God. Remember that Moses had to be translated to enter his presence. Our text reads thus:
For without this no man can see the face of God, even the Father, and live.
Now this Moses plainly taught to the children of Israel in the wilderness, and sought diligently to sanctify his people that they might behold the face of God;
But they hardened their hearts and could not endure his presence; therefore, the Lord in his wrath, for his anger was kindled against them, swore that they should not enter into his rest while in the wilderness, which rest is the fullness of his glory.
Therefore, he took Moses out of their midst, and the Holy Priesthood also;
And the lesser priesthood continued, which priesthood holdeth the key of the ministering of angels and the preparatory gospel. (D&C 84:22–26)
Note that my theory is that Smith restored plural marriage and the Hebrew theology of an embodied God the Father through the temple ritual of the 1800s which ended with seeing God face to face as represented by a male priest playing the role of God.
Question: So if I understand these texts correctly, they are telling us that what was to take place at Sinai prior to the children of Israel making their epic journey to their holy land was the same thing that took place in the early history of the Church in this dispensation?
Answer: It is the same story all over again. The one story is but the type and shadow of the other. Thus to those of our day, the Lord says,
Behold, I say unto you, the redemption of Zion must needs come by power;
Therefore, I will raise up unto my people a man [Joseph Smith], who shall lead them like as Moses led the children of Israel.
For ye are the children of Israel, and of the seed of Abraham, and ye must needs be led out of bondage by power, and with a stretched-out arm.
And as your fathers were led at the first, even so shall the redemption of Zion be. (D&C 103:16–18)
Question: I thought the gathering of Israel centered in her rightful descendants being given the lands that had been promised to their progenitors. You are telling me that the gathering centers in their returning to the covenants of salvation?
Answer: Yes; let me show you how the revelations of the Restoration teach this doctrine. In Doctrine and Covenants 39, we have an account of the Lord speaking to a Baptist minister by the name of James Covill. The Lord tells him that he needs to be baptized. “And if thou do this, I have prepared thee for a greater work. Thou shalt preach the fulness of my gospel, which I have sent forth in these last days, the covenant which I have sent forth to recover my people, which are of the house of Israel” (D&C 39:11; emphasis added). The point here is that to gather Israel is to baptize Israel, wherein they turn to Christ, taking his name upon them.
... Question: So who has claim to the lands promised to Abraham’s seed?
Answer: I will answer your question with the words of Abraham himself: “But, I Abraham, and Lot, my brother’s son, prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord appeared unto me, and said unto me: Arise, and take Lot with thee; for I have purposed to take thee away out of Haran, and to make of thee a minister to bear my name in a strange land which I will give unto thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession, when they hearken to my voice” (Abraham 2:6; emphasis added). Only those who hearken to the voice of the Lord and keep the covenants we have referenced ever had or ever will have any claim from God to a land of inheritance.
Question: So what is the doctrine of the scattering of Israel?
Answer: In ancient times, when Israel turned from Christ and broke her covenants, she lost the right to a land of inheritance, it being a seal or token of the covenant; she was then scattered among the nations of the earth. Prophecy repeatedly foretold that Israel would be scattered among all the nations of the earth, and that scattering continues to this day.
We as a Church have been commissioned to gather scattered Israel, which we do by sending out missionaries to declare Christ and to invite all who believe to be baptized. When appropriate, those baptized are invited to gather with the Saints as they did in Kirtland, Nauvoo, and the Rocky Mountains during pioneer days. This is so that they can receive the full blessings of the temple. Now that the Church is in a position to take temples to the ends of the earth, members of the Church in foreign lands are asked to stay in their homelands and build up Zion there.
... Question: What were the promises that were made to their fathers?
Answer: We know these promises as the Abrahamic covenant. This is what was restored by the Elias from Abraham’s day to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in the Kirtland Temple. It is the power and authority to perform eternal marriage [note that this initially meant primarily plural marriage]. When a couple is married in the temple, they, like Abraham, receive the promise that they will have seed that is as countless as the sands of the sea or the stars of the heaven. This is the promise of the continuation of the family unit throughout the endless expanses of eternity.
Abraham was promised that his seed would hold the priesthood and be the missionaries that would take the gospel to all other nations. This is why Joseph and Oliver [as polygamists] were told that in their seed all generations after them would be blessed. This promise is extended to all who enter into to the new and everlasting covenant of marriage.
Elder Bruce R. McConkie, who wrote more on this subject than perhaps any of our latter-day leaders, said: “The crowning blessings of the gospel are received in temples, in holy sanctuaries apart from the world, in the places where only the faithful assemble. It is in temples—whether they be the portable tabernacle of testimony used by Moses, or the magnificent wonder of the world built by Solomon, or the temples of the latter days—that the saints receive the mysteries of godliness. It is in these holy houses that faithful couples enter into the ordinance of celestial marriage through which they become parties to the Abrahamic covenant, the covenant of eternal increase, the covenant that in them and in their seed all generations shall be blessed.[4]
... Christ talked at length about this doctrine at the temple in Bountiful. His remarks centered on the necessity of those who were lost repenting and hearing his words. “But if they will repent and hearken unto my words, and harden not their hearts, I will establish my church among them, and they shall come in unto the covenant and be numbered among this the remnant of Jacob, unto whom I have given this land for their inheritance” (3 Nephi 21:22; emphasis added).
Speaking of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, Christ said, “Therefore it shall come to pass that whosoever will not believe in my words, who am Jesus Christ, which the Father shall cause him [meaning Joseph Smith] to bring forth unto the Gentiles, and shall give unto him power that he shall bring them forth unto the Gentiles, (it shall be done even as Moses said) they shall be cut off from among my people who are of the covenant” (3 Nephi 21:11). Here Christ is saying that those in the last days who reject his words found in the Book of Mormon and thus deny the testimony of Joseph Smith, the great revelator of Christ for this dispensation, will not, as Moses prophesied, be numbered among those who have rightful claim to the blessings of the covenant.
... Question: Relative to the return of the ten tribes, what are we to understand about the promise that their prophets will lead them?
Answer: Again, Elder McConkie has responded:
Their prophets! Who are they? Are they to be holy men called from some unknown place and people? Are they prophets unbeknown to the presiding officers of “the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth”? (D&C 1:30.) Perish the thought! The President of the Church, who holds the keys to lead the Ten Tribes from the nations of the north wherein they now reside, holds also the keys of salvation for all men. There are not two true churches on earth, only one; there are not two gospels or two plans of salvation, only one; there are not two competing organizations, both having divine approval, only one. “Is Christ divided?” (1 Cor. 1:13.) God forbid. Their prophets are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They are stake presidents and bishops and quorum presidents who are appointed to guide and direct the destinies of their stakes and wards and quorums.[6]
... Question: Does this text indicate why the tribes will return?
Answer: It appears that they will come to receive the blessings of the temple. Consider this language: “And there shall they fall down and be crowned with glory, even in Zion, by the hands of the servants of the Lord, even the children of Ephraim. And they shall be filled with songs of everlasting joy” (D&C 133:32–33).
Question: Have the ten tribes been scattered thoughout all the nations of the earth or have they remained together as a people?
Answer: We have a host of scriptural texts that tell us that all twelve of the tribes of Israel have been scattered among all the nations of the earth. Mormon stated the matter thus:
And as surely as the Lord liveth, will he gather in from the four quarters of the earth all the remnant of the seed of Jacob, who are scattered abroad upon all the face of the earth.
And as he hath covenanted with all the house of Jacob, even so shall the covenant wherewith he hath covenanted with the house of Jacob be fulfilled in his own due time, unto the restoring all the house of Jacob unto the knowledge of the covenant that he hath covenanted with them.
And then shall they know their Redeemer, who is Jesus Christ, the Son of God; and then shall they be gathered in from the four quarters of the earth unto their own lands, from whence they have been dispersed; yea, as the Lord liveth so shall it be. Amen. (3 Nephi 5:24–26)
Scriptural language cannot be more emphatic than this. As both an introduction and a conclusion, Mormon states that if God lives, what he has said must be true. He tells us that all the tribes have been scattered among all nations and that they are to come to a knowledge of the covenant that God made with their fathers and to a knowledge of Christ before they can be returned to their lands of inheritance. It appears that the ten tribes were together in various groups and were visited by Christ after he visited the Nephites; but like the Nephites, they became “a lost and fallen people” and were scattered.
To capture and summarize the primary message of the Book of Mormon, Moroni paraphrases a charge given by Isaiah to the scattered remnants of Israel in the last days: “Awake, and arise from the dust, O Jerusalem; yea, and put on thy beautiful garments, O daughter of Zion; and strengthen thy stakes and enlarge thy borders forever, that thou mayest no more be confounded, that the covenants of the Eternal Father which he hath made unto thee, O house of Israel, may be fulfilled” (Moroni 10:31).
... Isaiah said, “Put on thy strength, O Zion” (Isaiah 52:1). In a revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants, the question is asked, “What is meant by the command in Isaiah, 52d chapter, 1st verse, which saith: Put on thy Strength, O Zion—and to what people had Isaiah reference to?” (D&C 113:7). The stated answer is that “he had reference to those whom God should call in the last days, who should hold the power of priesthood to bring again Zion, and the redemption of Israel; and to put on her strength is to put on the authority of the priesthood, which she, Zion, has a right to by lineage; also to return to that power which she had lost” (D&C 113:8). This clearly places the whole story of the gathering of Israel in the context of an event that is to take place under the direction of the priesthood. The birthright to the priesthood, it also notes, still rests with the scattered remnant of Abraham’s seed.
So it is that we return to the events that took place April 3, 1836, in the Kirtland Temple as recorded in D&C 110. Following the appearance of Christ to accept that edifice as his holy house came Moses, Elias, and Elijah, each to restore his distinctive priesthood keys. The order of their coming is a type—it represents perfectly the history of the house of Israel. First came Moses to restore the keys by which the great message of the Restoration would be declared to Israel, lost and scattered to the ends of the earth. She was to be gathered again to the covenant of her fathers, specifically and particularly the Abrahamic covenant. Then came an Elias from Abraham’s day to restore the authority by which a man and a woman are sealed together for time and all eternity and are granted all the blessings promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Then came Elijah, with the keys by which all gospel ordinances are sealed. The order is perfect, the doctrine sweet, and the way sure.
Question: If this covenant embraces the blessings of salvation, the salvation is a family affair. After the days of Abraham, no one could be saved in the kingdom of God unless they held a place in his family. Is this the case?
Answer: It most certainly is. Salvation is a family affair. We cannot, as those of the sectarian world would suppose, obtain it separately and singly. Salvation, meaning exaltation, requires the eternal union in marriage of a man and a woman (see D&C 131). That marriage must be performed by the sealing power restored to Joseph Smith in the Kirtland Temple on April 3, 1836 (see D&C 132:7–22).
It should also be noted that Joseph Smith taught that those not naturally of Abraham would be adopted as his seed when they received the gift of the Holy Ghost after baptism.[7] Elder McConkie summarizes the whole matter thus:
What, then, is involved in the gathering of Israel? The gathering of Israel consists in believing and accepting and living in harmony with all that the Lord once offered his ancient chosen people. It consists of having faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, of repenting, of being baptized and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and of keeping the commandments of God. It consists of believing the gospel, joining the Church and coming into the kingdom. It consists of receiving the holy priesthood, being endowed in holy places with power from on high, and receiving all the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, through the ordinance of celestial marriage. And it may also consist of assembling to an appointed place or land of worship.[8]
I conclude with an extract from the dedicatory prayer of the Kirtland Temple. The Prophet importuned the heavens, pleading, “May all the scattered remnants of Israel, who have been driven to the ends of the earth, come to a knowledge of the truth, believe in the Messiah, and be redeemed from oppression, and rejoice before thee” (D&C 109:67). To this we would but say, “Amen,” with the appended plea that we might play our rightful part in this the greatest drama of earth’s history.
END OF ARTICLE
